An Especially Unusual Human
by Iona Nineve
Summary: A ruined town, more nightmare sharing, a gifted black book, an odd human, a lot of chocolate, visits by Death, and a doctor turned gravedigger. Long explanation as to how Henry chose an odd occupation. Rated T for character death, just in case.


**Disclaimer: I do not own Forever or any of these characters.**

**Author's Note: I recently started rereading the Book Thief and a particular question regarding a former occupation choice of Henry's sorta clicked and this is what grew from that. Hope you enjoy! Please feel free to comment.**

An Especially Unusual Human

I return to my little story for a short moment because I told a little lie, an accident of memory I assure you. You see, I did see young Liesel Meminger on one other occasion. The day was orange, tinted by the continued flames; I was rather preoccupied at the time, it was at a field hospital in a small town outside of Munich and like the doctors and nurses I was also tending to the wounded though. My intentions were not to save lives. On a bench I the corner a doctor tried to calm the hysterical, nearly catatonic, and disheveled girl. I glanced at them and again foolishly stayed to watch, my attention was drawn to the man, who I had seen many times before and would see again.

He cared for her gently, his white overcoat wrapped around her small honey shoulders. His eyes, like her's, were aged far past the years shown in their faces; the difference: her's showed more than any child should have, his showed the experience of a life longer than any human had the right to.

Eventually the girl calmed to the point coherence. "Who are you?" She asked, hugging herself and gazing intently at the man in front of her.

"I'm Doctor Henry Morgan. What's your name?"

"Liesel." She paused, thinking. "I want to go home."

Avoiding blatantly saying that she no longer had a home he suggested an alternative. "Perhaps we can go for a walk. "He glanced over to a medic who had entered the tent a moment before. The medic nodded, answering the silent question as to whether the bodies had been cleared. "Will you accompany me?" He asked her, proffering his arm. They walked the shattered streets of Mulching. The girl halted in front of a pile of rubble no different in appearance to the rest, probably what had been her home. Her eyes hit upon a black corner protruding from the rubble, he followed her gaze. Letting go of the girl for a moment then reached into the rubble and pulled out a black book, silver lettering announced its title, The Gravedigger's Handbook. He presented it to the girl, who took it and clutched it to her chest. They returned to the tents, Liesel clutching the book in one hand and holding tightly to his arm with the other.

That night, about two in the morning, Doctor Morgan passed the refugee tent on his way to bed when he heard frightened cries. Entering he found the source to be Liesel Meminger. She sat straight up in the cot, he went to her and sat beside her on the cot. "It's alright, you're safe." He reaffixed the fallen white coat onto her shoulders. "Nightmare's are awful aren't they?"

She nodded, then looked up in wonderment at the man. "You have nightmares?" She whispered.

"Yes. There's a lot of cold dark water and I'm held down and no one's around to hear me." He didn't ask for her's and she didn't share, they both knew what she would say. He looked down at the book. "You like to read?"

"Yes."

"Would you read some for me?" A small smile crossed her face and began to read from the black book.

Looking on, too out of earshot to hear even if she could understand their low voiced conversation in German, was a nurse, who had also come in response to the cry, watching the doctor with the young girl.

The next day Mr. Steiner came to take Liesel into his home. Before she left, she sought out Doctor Morgan. She stood before him, a twig of a girl, as she held out to him the black book.

"I couldn't, it means so much to you." He said.

"Please, I want you to have it." She insisted pushing it into his hands. "Thank you."

I shall now take the opportunity to explain my odd acquaintance with this man. It began in 1810, it was deep velvet blue, he was at the bedside of his mother's deathbed as I collected her soul. I payed him little attention then nor the next time I saw him two years later. A wooden brown day, and like the last he attended a deathbed now of his father, the gold watch in his hand seemed to hang between them, I detached his father's soul. Two years passed and I arrived in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on a dark green night, a barely living body was thrown overboard and a moment later I was about to seize the soul of the man, as soon as I reached down the body disappeared then reappeared alive though no longer clothed, intrigued I remained and watched as the man died and returned repeatedly as he struggled against the ocean. A year or so later I was brought to a cell, empty but for a very living priest and a sheet noose hanging from the rafter. Any attempts on my part to reason any explanation for this especially unusual human would require more chocolate than exists on earth. Many years later on a grass green day in New York I saw this unaged man again, having passed him many times over the years, on a grassy open space standing by the wheelchair bound body of a friend, whose soul I also collected. Two years after the incident described earlier I saw this Henry Morgan again, I was once again and for the last time visiting the place they called Auschwitz. He stood with the blond nurse also mentioned earlier, they surrounded a small baby held in his arms. Another span of time when he and I missed each other passed, to tell the truth I was getting rather annoyed having to show up and find no one to collect. At the dawn of a rosy pink morning I saw him again, once again by the side of a deathbed, this time in a hospital room. The figure in the bed was the nurse, older and exhausted in appearance, in a chair on one side of the bed a twenty-something boy sat gazing at his parents in a chair. Henry Morgan, still unaged since my first interest in him, slept half collapsed onto the bed, his and her wedding-banded left hands intertwined. When I collected her peaceful soul he did not waken but I was aware of the boy catching sight of me taking his mother.

After that I saw very little of him, only the continual passing ritual. One day when in some spare time I strolled through a cemetery, I'm aware that that sounds terribly stereotypical but honestly I find the extravagances you humans bestow upon your dead rather amusing, I saw him busily digging a grave like a gaping maw of the earth, on an edge of the hole rested the small black book. The Gravedigger's Handbook for the immortal doctor turned gravedigger.

**PS: I considered adding one more visit by Death to Henry it would've gone like this. **

**_'That boy who saw me would greet me many years later when I retrieved his soul from a similar scene as that day. The ever unchanging Henry Morgan was awake this time and saw me clearly, and addressed me directly in an anguished voice. "No! Please, not him too." He reached out as though to seize my wrist, to my surprise my hand stopped as though held back. "Take me."_**

**_"Dad. Let go." The now elderly boy said weakly. He did, my arm was released and the boy's soul was detached.'_**


End file.
